Unauthorized Cinnamon
by Arcadya
Summary: TV Prompt Challenge. A horrible accident befalls one of the team. One-shot, humorous at least I think so .


**Another entry for the TV Prompt Challenge. Hopefully you all enjoy this!**

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**Prompt**

**Deadwood: Unauthorized Cinnamon**

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"Oh God"' she sputtered, "What is this god-awful evil?"

She contemplated spitting the disgusting mouthful back into the paper cup. Truly she did, for about three seconds, then she remembered that Emily had been standing next to her when she had taken her first sip-o-the-day. It probably wasn't the smartest idea to re-fill someone else's drink choice with the contents of her mouth. Even her significant other really didn't appreciate pre-loved food/drink.

She glanced toward Emily, looking out for the tell-tale signs of a profiler on the loose. There was the intense stare, the slightly raised eyebrow. Yep, Emily was definitely waiting to see what she would do.

Grimacing, she swallowed. Her brain cringing in the corner of her wounded soul trying to claw its taste bud receivers out of the neuron pulsating pathway of information carrying electricity. Her brain didn't need to know what this liquid beverage was doing; it didn't need to be accosted by the evilness contained within this goblet of death.

Emily's attention moved toward the cup, she delicately removed it from Garcia's grip lest it _accidentally _fell to the wayside of the trash bin. Now Emily was carrying all four cups again.

Garcia considered grabbing a fistful of napkins to try and remove the pervasive stench from her beautiful, beautiful mouth. But it was to no avail, they were leaving the coffee house and even though she had purposefully disregarded what she must look like, having papery clumps attach themselves to your tongue didn't actually remove the god-awful taste from her tongue. It just made the paper taste cinnamon-y.

She had cinnamon balls of paper melting in her mouth; there was no recovering from this.

_**Who in their right mind would think that cinnamon was an appropriate coffee beverage choice?**_

She glared at Prentiss.

"Is _it_ yours?" She demanded, pointing her bejeweled finger at the object of wickedness.

For her part, Garcia concluded, Emily had done a wonderful job of not laughing, but her tiny smirk was all that pointed to how hilarious she found the situation.

She didn't answer.

Garcia growled, she would get to the bottom of this injustice, and whoever had deigned that coffee should be joined with cinnamon would pay. They would pay dearly…

They arrived back at the police station quickly; the coffee house was situated half a block away. The team was on assignment in Denver. Rossi, Reid and Morgan were out in the field. It seemed like a clear-cut case, they could have simply sent the profile from Quantico but the higher ups had decided the BAU needed to put in an appearance. So while the macho boys plus Reid, were out in the hill tops singing the _Sound of Music_, Hotch, Prentiss, JJ and the 'Queen of all the is Coolly Random and Mysterious' had been sifting through the case file, making it look like they were actually still working. Garcia was pretty sure any second Hotch was going to start climbing the walls, Spiderman style, without the skintight costume and sticky web wrist dispersion. Every time he pulled a new page over, to start reading the next one, his eyebrow twitched, a sure sign to anyone within ten feet that his brain was about to explode. The team knew where, who, how and why the UnSub did what he did, they also knew where he was and it should be relatively easy for the other half of their team to bring him in. It had been a quiet day all round even the flight to Denver had been relaxing for once, and Garcia had been craving some 'drinkable' caffeinated beverages, as she had shockingly found out the police station standard cuppa Joe didn't fit the bill.

Since, Emily was the profiler and not the profiler with the scary 'give me my coffee now or die' stare, she had commandeered her and off they went without a second glance. Well, maybe a second glance from Emily…to reassure JJ they weren't abandoning her to the multitudes (okay, three) Denver cops who were politely trying to get her 'attention'.

Garcia was still fuming, the cinnamon paper coffee concoction had still not left her mouth and she was loathe to add her wonderful beverage to its insanity. Every five seconds or so she gagged as another wave of the evil that is cinnamon coasted over her taste buds. Never before had she been so determined to discover who the cinnamon fiend was. They would pay. She hoped it wasn't JJ; she wouldn't like to deprive Henry of his mother. Emily was suspiciously happy, so maybe it was her, but she hadn't seemed too outraged when her coffee cup had been stolen and drunk by Miss Penelope Garcia. That only left one other option, and that would be a hard one to win in a fight to the death. But Garcia was determined; she would not let this injustice go unpunished.

They entered the station, and JJ immediately pounced upon them. She tried to grab at one of the coffee cups. Emily made a 'tsking' noise; apparently JJ was going for the wrong cup.

"That's mine!" She said quickly, turning the four holder tray so that the furthermost south cup was now in front of JJ's twitching hand. "The cold one's yours, remember?"

"Oh yes," JJ sighed, "Triple Grande Java Chip Frappacino. Pure Heaven."

Emily grinned at her remark.

"Which one's mine?" Garcia interrupted JJ's slice of heaven inspired drinkable bliss.

JJ watched carefully as Emily tried to school her grin into something less that outright hilarity. "What happened?" She asked suspiciously.

Garcia turned to Emily and gave her the patented almost as good as Hotch's glare. "Don't you dare!" She exclaimed, 'now hand over my drink and no one will get hurt."

Emily motioned toward the cup furthest from JJ's, "that's the one – your White Mocha/Raspberry soy latte." She giggled as she finished.

"No seriously what happened?" JJ insisted, anything that Garcia was embarrassed about was surely good value.

"If Emily wants to wake up tomorrow morning and still exist in this world, she will not say anything mildly related to the past fifteen minutes."

"So, what did you get Em?" JJ asked, knowing that Garcia could completely carry through with that threat, and she dearly wanted Emily to still be alive tomorrow.

"Yes…what did you get?" Penelope Garcia wanted to know if she was correct in her assumption…now that it was clear the cinnamon horrendousness was _not_ JJ's, that only left two options, and all indications were pointing away from Emily Prentiss.

"Is that coffee?" A manly voice asked from the shadows. Okay, the hallways…shadows sounded more interesting.

"Yes." JJ answered, "Did you place an order?"

"No. I assume you got my usual?" Hotch inquired of Prentiss.

"Yes sir." She lifted one of the paper cups out of the holder and handed it over to the boss man. Before he sipped it though, he must have seen something intriguing, because he paused, paper cup millimeters away from his mouth. "Prentiss, why is there lipstick on my cup?"

"Enthusiastic barista?"

Garcia was standing in open-mouthed shock.

Hotch's eyebrow rose, why was Penelope staring at him like he'd just killed her computer with a baseball bat? He was going to say puppy, but realized she was more attached to her computer than any fictional Maltese terrier.

"It was you!" She exclaimed, gagging reflexively in memory.

Both JJ and Hotch were bewildered, what was she talking about?

"You're the cinnamon swine?"

Emily chortled quietly behind her coffee cup; she was trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

"Are you mocking my proclivity for cinnamon Miss Garcia?" Hotch asked, his voice suddenly without warmth.

"But sir, cinnamon is the devil. No really, nine out of ten demonic minions agree!" Garcia was getting on a roll now. "It's bad enough that once upon a time only toothpaste had fallen under the Machiavellian regime, but now doughnuts, coffee and chewing gum! It's too much sir; I beg of you, resist the evil-doers! Run for safety while you still can!"

"I appreciate your concern Penelope, but sadly, I have been a worshipper of the cinnamon gods for a long time…there is nothing better than a Cinnamon Dolce Latte."

"Prentiss please, why didn't you alert me to this disease within our unit? You of all people should realize what a danger this is…wait! What did you get?" Garcia peered perilously into the cup she was holding, praying it wasn't a repeat of the cinnamon evil.

"Skim Latte with a shot of caramel." Prentiss replied, she wasn't into _really_ fancy coffee. Too many flavors ruined the bean-y taste.

Garcia sighed loudly, "Thank you God! I thought we had an epidemic on our hands. But since it's just you Hotch, we might survive."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that Garcia, I have ways of making you drink." His lips quirked, wiping away the lipstick stain before sipping at his coffee.

JJ laughed at the seriousness of Garcia's response. Who knew she hated cinnamon that much? She retreated behind the desks that had been cleared for them. She sat down and began to drink her beloved frappacino. She loved Frappacinos, all of them.

Garcia realizing that Hotch was never going to deny the call of cinnamon, left quickly muttering the entire way.

"So, Prentiss, how much of my coffee did she drink?" Hotch asked, he wasn't really concerned.

"One sip, she practically died."

"She never has liked cinnamon, I still don't know why."

"You could just ask her." Emily replied.

"If she goes off on a rant, from simply accidentally ingesting some cinnamon, how long do you think she'd go on if I asked her how this all started?"

Emily grinned, "You're right, sir. It's probably safer to live in the dark."

"On this aspect at least."

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**And on a side note, no, I don't hate cinnamon this much...only Garcia :)**

**Let me know what you think, I haven't written anything truly fluffy in ages...**

**Arc  
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